E-Learning and practical skills
By: Mehfoom Gul
Education has practiced its major shift in ages over the past few years, moving away from the archetype of a teacher at the front of a classroom conveying their knowledge to a teacher on every display and shift from being the ‘sage on the stage’ to ‘crowd in the cloud’ from ‘guide on the side’ to ‘guide every side’. and with the advent of social technologies, there has of course, been a big shift towards the ‘crowd in the cloud’ where the barriers to imparting knowledge have crumbled and individuals learn from each other, where anyone can set themselves up as an expert without having clear expertise.
Knowledge, of course is essential, but one in today’s time doesn’t need a teacher to gain the knowledge – one can sit quietly with a mobile phone or one’s favorite websites and read the knowledge.
Of course being a 21st century digitally equipped guy I as an entity doesn’t fully oppose the online learning initiative but what none of these methods are really good at doing is imparting ‘skills’ – both soft and hard skills. They can teach you the theories about teamwork, or facts influencing skills, can help you learn leadership. But it is still knowledge. Knowing the knowledge does not mean you will know how to practice it.
They can teach you developing a strategy for expanding markets, but things would still purely remain theory. They can just make you knowledgeable about case studies of successful or unsuccessful situations that other firms have experienced in the past.
But in real sense these initiatives will not be able to challenge you in field. These initiatives deceive you from real sense of practicality; reading about the past is not always going to be relevant for the future. Trust me in future the knowledge of a dozen PhD theses will not help a manager actually manage better until they have seen what works, when it works, how it works and why is it so.
Nowadays everyone is able to record anything on their phone and post it on YouTube, a famous proverb” Too many cooks spoil the food” best explains today’s e-learning program. Once again this is all about transmitting and imparting knowledge. But how do we teach skills through online learning?
The acquisition of skills, of course, can only come through practical experience. It is just like knowing how a guitar works, but it takes practice to play it well, converting the knowledge into a skill.
The worldwide web has revolutionized our lives by giving everyone instant access to the world’s knowledge from their mobile phone. This knowledge can be tested through online quizzes or online submissions can be assessed by peers around the world, showing how the ‘crowd in the cloud’ can be both teacher and student at the same time.
But the real challenge for eLearning is how to provide the practice needed to turn the knowledge into skills. How to ensure students are engaging online with a project the way you can be sure they do in the classroom, when they are face-to-face with the client and the mentor.
How to ensure everyone is listening, how can you be sure that the student through online learning is paying attention and not on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, WeChat or Twitter? At least in the classroom you can walk around and see what everyone is up to. And environments like MOOCs are great in theory but have a very low completion rate. A challenge for educators everywhere is how to engage the disengaged?
There is a false but commonly apprehended belief that young adults are digital natives and therefore completely comfortable with all technology. But trust me they don’t necessarily know, for example, how to use Microsoft Office efficiently, or use the shortcuts that will help them use their laptops. They have not all experienced the real virtual reality yet.
While online learning is a godsend to all of us to quickly clarify confusions and enable self-paced learning, empowers with the wisdom of the world’s greatest thinkers and allows the crowd in the cloud to share their expertise.
No matter we are heading to a stage that we can implant a chip in our brains which instantly accesses all the knowledge in the world, but we still need to learn how to use that knowledge and convert it into a skill. On a personal level, I cannot wait for the chip, and I am fascinated to see how the educators of the future will focus on the practical portion of knowledge.
